Messages

Messages is a tab of each project in Your projects, and part of Creator Pro. It keeps every message visitors send through your page's contact form in one table, so you can see who wrote, reply, and archive what is done. This guide covers the table, reading and replying to a message, the three statuses, and the tab without Pro.

The tab sits in the project's sidebar between Scorecards and Stats. On a project with Pro, an amber number beside Messages counts the messages marked New; with none, there is no number.

Each message is still emailed to you, and still in the bell. The tab is a place to keep and sort them, not a replacement for either. See Messages from visitors and The bell.

The tab opens under the heading Messages, with one line:

Messages from your contact form. Each one is also emailed to your address.

where your address is the one you log in with.

Your messages stay with you. No festival, judge or visitor sees them or their status, and nothing is sent to anybody when you change one.

Without Pro

On a project without Pro, Messages in the sidebar carries an indigo Pro pill, and the tab is a single card:

Keep every message in one place

Pro adds a contact form to your page. Visitors write to you without seeing your address, and every message lands here and in your email, so you can see who wrote, reply and archive what is done.

with Get Pro and "$4.99 a month or $39.99 a year for this page". Get Pro opens the Get Pro dialog; see Creator Pro.

• Without Pro your page shows no contact form, so no new messages arrive. See Messages from visitors.
• Messages you received before you had Pro are in the table once you get it. Each one starts as New.
• When Pro ends, the tab goes back to this card. Nothing is deleted: your messages and their statuses come back if you take Pro again.

Reading the table

Newest first, one row per message, with these columns:

• From: the sender's name, which opens the message, and under it their organisation, or their email address when they gave no organisation.
• Type: every message reads Message.
• Message: the start of what they wrote, on one line.
• Status: New (amber), Replied or Archived. See New, Replied and Archived. An archived message's row is shaded.
• Received: the day and time it arrived, such as Wed 14 Oct 2026, 08:12, on a 24-hour clock in your device's own time zone.
• ⋯, at the end of the row: the row menu.

Left of the From column, each row shows its number. It turns into a checkbox when you point at the row, for choosing several messages at once; on a phone the checkbox is always there. See Several at once.

On a narrow screen the table scrolls sideways. The header row stays at the top, and the checkbox and From columns stay pinned on the left, so you always know whose message a row is.

What a visitor typed is shown exactly as typed. A web address in a message is plain text, not a link: copy it if you want to open it.

Finding a message

• Search, "Search 12 messages", matches the sender's name, organisation and email address and what they wrote, ignoring capitals. Esc or the ✕ in the field clears it. Changing the search clears any rows you had ticked.
• Sorting. Choose the Type, Status or Received heading to sort by it, and choose it again to reverse. The table starts on Received, newest first. Status sorts New, then Replied, then Archived. Messages that tie are ordered by the sender's name, A to Z. From and Message do not sort.

The line under the table says how many messages there are, how many are new, what the search matches and how they are sorted: "12 messages, 2 new. 3 matching "harbour". Sorted by received, newest first."

When nothing matches, the table gives way to Nothing matches "harbour", with "Search by name, organization, email or what they wrote." and a Clear search button.

A message that arrives while you are here

The table is as it was when you opened the project. A message sent while you have it open is not added by itself: reload the page to see it. It is in your email and the bell straight away.

Opening a message

Choose the sender's name, or ⋯ then Open. The message opens in a dialog:

• the sender's name, and under it "Organisation, message", or just "message" when they gave no organisation;
• their email address;
• Received, with the day and time;
• the whole message, with its line breaks kept.

At the foot are Archive (or Move to inbox, for an archived message) and Reply by email. ✕, Esc or a click outside the dialog closes it and changes nothing.

Opening a message does not change its status. A New message stays New until you reply to it or mark it.

Replying

1. Open the message and press Reply by email.
2. Your email app opens a new email to the sender, with the subject "Re: project title".
3. The dialog closes, the message is marked Replied, and "Opening your email. Name is marked as replied." appears.

• It is marked Replied as soon as you press the button, whether or not you send the email. If you did not, ⋯ then Mark as new puts it back.
• Reply by email needs an email app set up on your device. If none opens, copy the address from the dialog and write from wherever you read your email.
• Replying from the email you were sent does not change the status here. That email's Reply goes straight to the visitor, but this tab does not know you used it: mark the message replied yourself.

New, Replied and Archived

A status is a note for you alone. The visitor is not told when you reply, mark or archive a message.

Changing a status

⋯ at the end of a row opens its menu, with the sender's name and email address at the top, then Open, then:

Move to inbox brings an archived message back as Replied, not New.

In the dialog, Archive says "Message archived." and Move to inbox says "Moved to your inbox."

Several at once

1. Tick the rows you want. The checkbox in the header ticks every row showing, or every matching row while you search ("Select all 3 matching").
2. A bar appears at the foot of the screen: "3 selected", Clear selection, Mark as replied and Archive.
3. Press Mark as replied or Archive. "3 marked as replied." or "3 archived." confirms it, and the ticks clear.

Every change shows at once, in the row and in the sidebar's number. If one cannot be saved, the row goes back to what it was and "That change was not saved. Try again." appears.

With no messages yet

The tab shows No messages yet, with one of two lines:

• "Messages from your page's contact form land here." — when your published page shows a Contact form;
• "Add a Contact form to your page and publish it to get messages here." with Go to Page — when it does not: the page has never been published, or was published without a Contact form, or with it hidden. Adding the block is in Editing your page.

If the tab does not load

The tab reads Something went wrong — "This tab didn't load." — with Try again. The rest of the project works as usual; press Try again, or come back to the tab later.

Related guides

• Creator Pro: getting Pro for a project, the plan line, billing and what happens when Pro ends.
• The public film page: the contact form visitors fill in, its limits, and the email each message sends you.
• The bell: where every message also lands, for all your projects at once.
• Stats: how many messages, views and visitors your page had.
• Editing your page: adding the Contact form block to your page.